Decades long player.. I have some suggestions and ideas I would LOVE to see in X4/X5 or whatever...

[VTJagatai]

I also strongly disagree with 2 and 5. Primarily because we know that Egosoft is a small company with limited resources. Anything spent on those items will directly take away from other features and improvements. Artists can't do everything - if they are building out procedural land-based and FPS content then they won't be making new ships. Same for the AI team - do we want better ship combat or do we want them to put in generic, fps shooter ai?

Plenty of companies are chasing the everywhere FPS - planet, stations, and ships - with a lot of procedural content. And they are all pretty meh. If Egosoft tries to break into this crowded field it will also be meh.

The X series does something unique that none of those other games come close to replicating. So I much prefer that Egosoft focus on improving and expanding on those unique features. They have so many great features from early games they can build into X5 as well as needed improvements. Fleshed out minor factions like corporations and pirates. Larger ships and stations. Continued improvements on AI and management. Solano and expanded threats.

[thedavid]

For walking around a planet, I can't see it. The only way I think this could work with the current game engine would be to teleport down to the planet and then be in a city and you can't go outside to touch the grass. If you could go outside it would be like KOTOR 2.

For FPS, I could get behind this. There is something lacking in what you can do while walking around. It would be nice to be able to do more. Every time I walk around a station I get flashbacks of Alien Isolation and wished I had a hacking tool. Or better looking hands on NPCs.

However, before actually adding either of these into the game I think it would be better to add better interiors to the stations. Maybe a food court, shopping mall, hotel, and other stuff to add to immersion.

One thing that seems like it might be easy to add would be going up to an S size ship that is docked. Talk to the pilot. If the player has a weapon in their inventory a new dialogue option would appear when talking to the pilot. You tell the pilot to get out of the ship or you will shoot them. The pilot gets up and you can steal the ship if you can get away. The entire station will turn hostile. As of right now there is only one ship that I know of that you can steal from a dock.

[Bozz11]

Going FPS and landing on planets would be a big mistake and seems out of scope for a small team like egosoft, I can imagine the lag on planets when you already have FPS dropps on stations.

[Good Wizard]

I just want to add to the doubts about 2) and 5)...

5) FPS - Please no. No. Elite Dangerous made the (IMO) grave error to do this and implemented a FPS shooting mechanism, which many people (including me) did not like. FPS players also criticized it being 'medium' to 'bad'. So please no...

2) Planet landings - seems cool, BUT...
Elite Dangerous has this, and it works great. It is seamlessly integrated with the (SciFi) propulsion (Frame Shift Drive), and feels 'realistic'. I landed on a lot of planets and moons, they even managed to make landing on higher gravity planets a bit more complicated and dangerous, so you have to learn it.
Where did I land? On airless planets and moons. The newest DLC allows landings in 'thin atmosphere' too, I did not buy it, because of bugs, and because of the FPS and the added grind, but this is my opinion. I no longer play ED, btw

As Starfield clearly shows, it is impossible for a game to allow landings on settled worlds! It never feels 'realistic', even if you have 'laws' which forbid landing in cities and so on. No engine (procedural and otherwise) can generate a settled world - like Earth, or even a more thinly settled planet. It will always be 'Starfield Emptiness' ((C) Todd 'Always Knows What Players Want' Howard).

So - where are all the airless or nearly airless planets in X? And what can we do there? If I can land, I want things to do there. And - while ED has a propulsion system which is Sci-FI totally, it still is believable. An Astrophysicist created this, and it shows. In X not much is said about propulsion, it look like a normal reaction drive, yes, fusion or whatever. X cleverly never goes into details...

But a propulsion drive, even if it uses some sort Nuclear Fusion, is just impossible - you will run out of reaction mass constantly. So better not discuss this...
But landing in a gravity well like a planet (it may have less than 1g, but still) costs a lot of reaction mass, and lifting off again costs even more. No sane person would plan to constantly land on planets if the ship uses a reaction mass propulsion drive.

So the idea of trade stations is actually best, and this they could add.
Additionally - if there is something to do - low gravity asteroids, where we could 'land' or 'dock' are possible - and already used.

So - planetary landings (and the game play and resources needed) - no please.

[Greenhorn]

Hi all ,Maybe a idea thought for players and egosoft devs, (Police station module),is a combine warf/equipment docks.. Creates ,builds Police Ships s/m sizes, For General Factions and. Specially for player owned sector owned.
For Factions -Gives player the thinking of selling ships and products ,water -food ,to the warf for ( Rep +),of the faction sector that it's at in for player.

For player owned sector, gives better protection and options for what comes in allowed or not.This gives auto revenue to player.
What do ya think players.

[Fatsack]

1) Bring back turrets on cap ships we can control

2) Use procedural generated planets and put landing areas we can go down to that we can even build bases on if we want.

3) Add a much more robust battle management system for Command control, including much better control of fighters, corvettes and ships formations and movements.

4) Add an editor to allow people like me that are not modders, to create new missions, campaigns that we can then share like a mod with the community. I do a LOT of scenario design for some projects and was a mission planner as well for my team in the US Navy.

5) FPS combat! Allow us to have boarders in FPS and vice versus, let us board with Marines in FPS on ships (or of course just send ours like we do now for those that do not like FPS stuff). BUT there is more.. Allow this on STATIONS TOO! Both we trying to take a station and of course pirates or aliens attempting to take over our stations. We have all this room and space, and while it is awesome eye candy, having FPS stuff happening... from boardings to missions to anything we can dream up, would be an awesome step for the X series future! Note this is OPTIONAL. I.E. you can still send Marines to deal with it, YOU do not have to partake. And this is SINGLE PLAYER ONLY, not FPS Call of Duty crap.

6) Set up an Egosoft server that we can easily update plans for ships, stations and someday missions possibly, from inside the game. A server that all players can access via the game in real time while playing.

Yes to all of these ideas. The only question is if Egosoft would be able to execute on them with quality. Considering the size of the team currently, probably not.

What I would like to see is more focus on the first person player micro-scale of the universe, and how it ties in to the macro scale. An example of what I mean is, if you send the Geometric Owl to disable a capital ships turrets with its cyclic ray, it will quickly get destroyed. But if you pilot the geometric owl, you can easily hamstring a xenon K or a teladi frigate, as long as it doesnt have much fighter support.

This a-symmetric change in the outcome by the players personal attendance is the strength of the game loop and should be broadened to other areas of the game. You should be able to use charisma, negotiation, blackmail, etc. to affect inter-faction diplomacy, trade deals, on and on. They half-attempted this with things like 'commissions' for trade deals, but I think they should focus more on it. Create systems that allow the player to plan and strategize and interact with individual characters more to affect the outcome of the galaxy. They need to watch more Babylon 5 and Star Trek (original, next generation, voyager) and find ways to implement emergent story lines similar to those episode plots and let the player be the main character.

[Fatsack]

5) FPS - Please no. No. Elite Dangerous made the (IMO) grave error to do this and implemented a FPS shooting mechanism, which many people (including me) did not like. FPS players also criticized it being 'medium' to 'bad'. So please no...

The only reason elite dangerous FPS sucks is because they implemented it poorly. They tried to make it mirror the ship combat in pace, build, and strategy. If you modeled FPS more off the single player campaigns of call of duty, or Halo, or the balance of single player rpgs like skyrim or fallout, it'd be WAY better. They just ****** up the execution of it because the player in ED is a nobody. You need to model it after the player being a hero, superman, main character, not some worthless space trucker.

[A5PECT]

Okay, so Egosoft just makes an entire Halo/CoD and seamlessly integrates it into their already massively complex space simulation game?

I'm reminded of Battlebit, which is a phenomenal indie fps that successfully captured the essence of a AAA shooter from a much larger studio. It's a great game, but it only takes one look at Battlebit to recognize the compromises they had to make to realize that goal as an indie developer. Plus, they were laser-focused on delivering a very specific game and built that from the ground up, they weren't trying to build it into an already existing game.

And you're setting your basing your expectations for Egosoft shoehorning a hypothetical fps mode into X4 on Halo and CoD?

[thedavid]

X4 is WAY better than Elite Dangerous. I don't know why anyone needs to bring up that other game. The only thing that Elite Dangerous has any advantage with is in the NPC models. Everything else is inferior.

When I finished the Paranid plot, before I got any of the DLCs, I got Elite Dangerous with the FPS addon. WASTE OF MONEY!!!


Things that should be fun but are not:

1: FPS combat. All your gear sucks and it will take you ten years of grinding to get anything good enough to take on even the EASIEST enemies.
2: Riding in the land buggy. It's too slow, flips over, and blows up the second anyone shoots at me. (Granted, it is the most fun thing in this game about flying in space)
3: Flying in space. INTERDICTION CONSTANTLY. Plus the ships suck to control, especially when using a controller. There is no freedom at all. It is too stressful.
4: Visiting new stars. Run out of FUEL and the ship overheats.
5: Visit the Solar System. NO, you're not allowed to go there until you grind rep for five or six years.
6: Exobiology, Where are the plants! This should be fun but I have to use an online guide and my character is freezing to death driving around.
7: Alpha Centari. Why is Huton station over an hour real life flight time away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8: Walking around outposts. There's NOTHING to do. No shops, no hotel, no diner. The ONLY reason to go to an outpost is to deliver stuff for missions or STEAL. What if I don't want to STEAL!! Sucks to be me who paid money for this game.

Add to those the things that are just not fun from the get go.

1: It's an ONLINE game. I"m a father with a two year old in my house. I NEED to be able to pause my game or not get booted because my kids unplugged something.
2: There is no story and no direction given to the player.
3: There's no one to interact with, even with it being an online game. There are no story NPCs and the other Online Players are no where near me.
4: The attitude problem all the merchants have.

I gave Elite Dangerous a chance. It is a failed game that does not deliver anything worth the price you pay to play it. I want to refund it and I NEVER refund a game. I put 400 hours into it testing things out and it still just isn't worth it.

So I got the DLCs for X4 Foundations and I'm happy again. The ships are fun to fly. Sure, I don't have FPS or a buggy to drive but I guess if I want to do those things I'll play GTA V or Skyrim. As for space games, X4 is so far ahead in quality of being an actual space game that no one else even comes close. Starfield and StarCitizen are just non starters at this point.

[Mr.Killer]

Why do everybody lack the translation of simple abbreviations. I read this post, I see FPS-combat, and I have no idea what it means, and there are maybe people on this planet who knows all the answers, but that is not me, so please people, abbreviate as much as you like, but at least translate it once in your comments.

Thanks!

(for all I know it means frames per second combat? but that makes absolutely no sense to me.)

[dansken]

... I see FPS-combat, and I have no idea what it means

FPS = First Person Shooter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_shooter

[Imperial Good]

2: There is no story and no direction given to the player.

It is my understanding that is kind of a big selling point of the Elite franchise. I think it has been the way of Elite since 1984. You are a space captain in a huge universe, what you do is entirely your choice.

[Malakie]

I thought I clearly said I was NOT saying to make it a full on first person shooter, rather to give the option for us to join in a fight on a ship or station in FPS if we wanted in FPS. There is a BIG difference in what I said and turning a game into a full on FPS style shooting game.. which is NOT what I wanted.

After all there are FPS weapons in the game already. If you don't want to do FPS yourself, don't. That's what you have Marines onboard for. They can deal with it if you do not want to partake. Heck I think it would be a LOT of fun to try boarding a ship or station in FPS while firing my laser at enemy NPC's in EVA or trying to burn a hole into an enemy ship to board it. Everything I said was about enhancement, adding function to the game.

My suggestions are all about the FUTURE of the game and franchise. Because without moving in those directions, eventually another game is going to over take the X series by doing just that in single player. We have already seen it happen now in multiple MMO's that have taken this type gameplay to never before levels. There are two HUGE well known games out now playable to a level that the X series has in single player. Mark my words, the day is coming where this will be the case in a future single player game as well. And if Egosoft does not work into the future thinking outside the box, my worry is we will all be the losers overall when people decide to migrate to new games that do have these kind of things in them. Right now, Egosoft still 'owns' the single player genre for space, no doubt. Two other games now surpass everything we see in X4 but in multiplayer MMO already. My hope is Egosoft retains the single player lead but to do so, the game MUST grow in ways that keeps people interested.

At some point, Egosoft WILL have to make some hard choices for the future. If the X series is going to survive another 25 years, then new functions, capabilities, game play options etc will have to be developed and added. There are too many upcoming new games in the space genre that will fill those niches and I would much rather see the X series fill in some of those areas for us instead. Whether it is some FPS capability, since we already have full FPS motion and functions, or planetary landing zones we can build and fight and trade in as well, I think adding things like that would not just ensure the longevity of the X series, but bring in a whole new audience of players to the series.

I have supported this series for all of its years. I fear without branching out into other game play elements, the X series will fall behind.